A couple of other people sat down opposite them; Elle looked at Rory, laughing with the MyHeart authors she should have been sitting with, his hand on Posy’s shoulder. Posy was glowing like a Christmas tree. Elle shrugged, trying not to seem disappointed. She had been looking forward to this evening for weeks, but so far the reality was quite different. It was like the evening version of job hunting, where no one is interested in you and the party seems to be happening at another table.
‘So you’re Rory’s substitute, then,’ someone said, on her other side. ‘I wondered who he’d get to swap with him.’
Elle turned round. There was a man next to her, about Rory’s age, maybe younger. He had dark hair, cropped short, and he was tall and angular; his evening dress hung off him, as if made for a larger man. ‘Oh – no, I think the table plan was wrong,’ she lied. ‘I’m Elle, Rory’s secretary.’
‘Hello, Elle,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘I’m Tom Scott.’
‘Hi, Tom,’ Elle said. There was a silence again, and she said desperately, ‘And what do you do?’
‘I’m an agent,’ he said, looking at her slightly irritably. ‘I work with my father, Tobias Scott.’
‘Oh,’ said Elle, enlightenment flooding over her face. ‘Of course.’
From their table, which really was situated in the most distant corner of the vast room, Tom Scott stared out over the massed crowds. ‘I’m not nearly important enough for Rory to waste his time on,’ he said. He took another sip of his wine.
He was kind of rude, Elle thought; there was something she didn’t like about the awkward way his jaw clenched, how his grey eyes narrowed as he scanned the room. Like he simply didn’t want to be there. Libby was next to Paris Donaldson, who was alternately tossing his hair and whispering in her ear. She caught Elle’s eye and winked at her and Elle winked back, trying to look as though she was having the best time of her life, that her corner of the room was a veritable Annabel’s, champagne flowing, gay laughter, wacky fun.
But by the time the first course was served, Elle and her companions had descended into a silence that confirmed what all of them knew: they were on the duff table. This silence was broken only by Elspeth saying in her fluting voice, ‘What lovely leeks!’
Elle, desperate, turned to Tony Rooney.
‘So, Tony,’ she said. ‘What books are you most excited about for summer and autumn?’
‘I’ve been doing this twenty-five years,’ Tony said, lighting up a cigarette. He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Hard to get excited after a while.’
‘That’s good to hear, good to hear,’ Elle said, nodding furiously.
‘Are you taking the mickey?’ Tony asked.
‘No, no!’ Elle said. What was wrong with him?
‘Are you a rep?’ Tom Scott, next to her, leaned forward and asked Tony.
‘Aye. London,’ Tony answered. He balanced his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, and shook Tom’s hand. ‘Tony Rooney.’
‘Tom Scott,’ Tom answered. Tony leaned forward, across Elle, as if she wasn’t there.
‘Who are you here for then, Tom?’
‘I look after – well, my father does – John Rainham,’ Tom said.
‘Your father?’ Tony asked.
There was the minutest pause and Tom looked uncomfortable. ‘He runs the agency, I work there. He couldn’t come tonight, so I stepped in. I’m an agent too …’ He trailed off.
Only got a job because his dad gave him one, Elle found herself thinking, meanly.
Tony nodded. ‘Well, John Rainham’s been good for us,’ he said. ‘Good books, great sense of place, good fan base in the shops. They love him in Greenwich, I suppose they would, eh!’
He smiled, and Tom smiled.
‘Wish you’d have a word with Rory then,’ Tom said. ‘He doesn’t seem to see it your way. He’s being pretty difficult about a new deal.’
Elle interrupted, she knew she had to. ‘Oh, Rory loves John Rainham, he—’
Tony cut straight across her. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘That’d be a shame. He’s a big author for me, Tom. Good man.’
Elle sat between them, and drained her wine glass. She tried to tuck a lock of her newly blonde, stubby hair behind her ear and frowned: usually she didn’t need any help to feel stupid. It was more than that though – she felt irrelevant, like a silly girl whose voice was higher, a waste of space. For the first conscious time in her adult life, Elle wondered how she’d have been treated if she’d been a boy.
‘Tom, my dear, how are you?’ Felicity was standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders. He stood up and she kissed his cheek.
‘I’m good, thanks, Felicity, how are you?’ he said. ‘You look wonderful.’
Creep, Elle thought.
‘I’m extremely well, thank you. Now, how’s your dear papa? Such a shame he can’t be here tonight, but you know, we must speak to him and sort out that new contract for John.’
‘Talk to your son about it,’ Tom said, smiling though his eyes were cold.
Felicity seemed to ignore this; she actually batted her lashes at him. ‘That piece on Dora in the Guardian Review was wonderful,’ she said. ‘Were you pleased? I loved it. I can’t wait to read the rest of the biography. It sounds marvellous.’
‘It’s good,’ Tom said, and then stopped. ‘Lovely to see you, Felicity.’
He sat down again. If Felicity was surprised at this abrupt termination of the conversation, she didn’t show it. She patted Elle’s shoulder. ‘Good work, Elle, my dear, good work,’ and moved on.
Flushed with kind words from her idol and full of sudden confidence, Elle turned to Tom. ‘Who’s Dora?’ she asked.
‘My mother,’ Tom said. He ate some bread, chewing it with his mouth open, and pretending to listen to the conversation on his other side, between Nathan the art director and Lorcan’s agent, about Lorcan’s next shoot, recreating a Bavarian castle in Teddington.
In one of those strange moments where a greater force takes over and the imagination leaps further than the facts, Elle pressed her hands together. ‘Dora – Zoffany?’ she asked. ‘She’s your mother?’
Tom nodded. ‘Yup.’ He didn’t seem particularly amazed she’d worked it out.
‘That’s incredible!’ Elle shook her head. ‘Oh – oh, my goodness. She’s one of my favourite novelists, we did her at university.’
‘You “did” her,’ Tom Scott said. ‘What does that mean?’
God, what a prick. ‘Studied her, sorry.’ Elle was still red with excitement. More than Barbara Pym or even Rosamond Lehmann, Dora Zoffany had been her favourite of the authors she’d studied as part of the Twentieth-Century Female Novelists course. She had read everything she’d written – eight novels, letters, short stories – umpteen times. In nearly a year at Bluebird, she had met lots of authors and spoken to even more, but to be seated next to Dora Zoffany’s son was something else. Dora was a proper novelist. People wrote biographies of her! Bookprint Publishers had only recently been taken severely to task in the Bookseller for letting her go out of print, Elle had read that very article only last week. And here she was next to Dora Zoffany’s son, even if he was an arrogant loser! She smiled happily at him. ‘I’m so – so …’ she started, and then trailed off.
Tom